The utility wmctrl has the possiblity to list the names of all virtual desktops:

%  wmctrl -d
0  - DG: 3360x1200  VP: 0,0  WA: 0,0 3360x1199  Mail / Comm
1  * DG: 3360x1200  VP: 0,0  WA: 0,0 3360x1199  Web / Docs
2  - DG: 3360x1200  VP: 0,0  WA: 0,0 3360x1199  A
3  - DG: 3360x1200  VP: 0,0  WA: 0,0 3360x1199  B

I would like to be able to change, from the commandline, the name of the current desktop to something else. This is possible by using some pagers, for example, but I couldn't find out how to do it from the command line.

Update: the xprop utility seems to be able to set the desktop names, but I could not figure out the exact format to do so, yet:

% xprop -root -f _NET_DESKTOP_NAMES 8s -set _NET_DESKTOP_NAMES asdf
% xprop -root _NET_DESKTOP_NAMES
_NET_DESKTOP_NAMES(UTF8_STRING) = "asdf", "Web / Docs", "A"